A culture without meaning or truth? Hardly a heart’s desire

Sydney
20 January 2002

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A culture without meaning or truth? Hardly a heart’s desire

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A culture without meaning or truth? Hardly a heart’s desire

Michael Casey ... clear and intelligent summary

By Kathleen Carmody

Sociologist Michael Casey describes his book Meaninglessness as an “attempt to comprehend an entirely new form of culture, a culture in which the question of meaning no longer occurs”.

Casey’s self-appointed task – to answer the question of whether a life lived without the experience of meaning is possible or desirable – is not as objective as it might first seem, given that he is a staunchly Catholic conservative; for how could a man of faith possibly argue that a life without meaning is possible?

So from the outset it is clear he will not be agreeing with his subjects of study.

That said, Casey gives an admirably clear and intelligent summary of the ideas of the three influential thinkers, and it isn’t until the final chapter that he offers his own interpretation with any force.

The book is structured in such a way as to allow the readers to cherry-pick according to their particular area of specialty or interest.

After a brief introduction, three separate chapters outline the solutions of Nietzsche, Freud and Rorty followed by a conclusion consisting of Casey’s rebuttal of their theories.

All three thinkers offer visions of a new society unencumbered by notions of meaning or absolute truth. All are by definition atheist.

For Nietzsche, it was the growth and influence of Christianity, with its claim to one ultimate meaning, that knocked us off the path towards a true “greatness of man”.

Nietzsche accepted that the need for some form of meaning was necessary for life, but he was scathing of the Christian notion of equality of humans and Christianity’s concern for the welfare of the repressed.

He saw these meanings as going against the “natural order” which distinguishes between the “noble” and the “slave” each of which should be governed by separate moralities in recognition of their differing statuses.

Nietzsche equated Christian morality with reactive slave morality which attempts to “better” people by taming the instincts. This taming and equalisation of humans, Nietzsche argues, has led to the evolution of the “hopelessly insipid and mediocre man”.

Humane, righteous and inoffensive, modern man betrays symptoms which are the opposite to what Nietzsche believes is needed for the enhancement of humanity: “severity, violence … inequality of rights … in short the opposite to which the herd thinks desirable”.

Nietzsche predicts the death of God, heralding the advent of “nihilism” where meaning has become irrelevant.

The period will be “weary, flat and stale” but will ultimately lead to a new world order dominated by the “superman” – a divided humanity where the weak will perish and the strong will conquer. In this new world, the need for meaning has been sublimated with the only meaning being man’s own will and power.

Like Nietzsche, Freud sees the need for meaning in a meaningless world as essential for modern human existence.

Freud sees this human need as infantile wish fulfilment, but he believes that faith in transcendence is necessary for public order.

Without the moral of religion dimension, society would descend into anarchy. His solution to the problem of meaning is therapy. With ongoing therapy, man’s need for meaning can be overcome, and the relationship of religion to society can be replaced by reason.

It is with the solutions of contemporary philosopher Richard Rorty that Casey concerns himself most seriously.

Rorty, who draws on both Nietzsche and Freud’s work, proposes a “post-metaphysical culture” which he sees as the emergent culture of the present. For Rorty, there is no fixed meaning or truth; everything is the product of chance, and the pursuit of the transcendent is pointless.

Rather than being informed by a notion of absolute meaning, the post-metaphysical world would be characterised by “contingency, irony and solidarity”. This solidarity – necessary for social cohesion – would spring from “imaginative identification” with others rather than a common belief or purpose.

Rorty believes this kind of society would be more pragmatic, tolerant and liberal than the earlier transcendent culture.

While – when analysed in Rortian terms – no society is technically better than another, Rorty’s ideal world is a liberal democracy with common obligations where the most important social goal is to avoid cruelty. Not that this is an unconditional commandment; instead, he argues it is in keeping with his ironic liberal vision.

In the book’s conclusion Casey describes the cultural solutions to meaninglessness offered by Nietzsche, Freud and Rorty as “fundamentally flawed”.

He offers an “ethical evaluation” by asking whether anything inherent in such cultures would be morally problematic and his answer is ‘yes’.

Casey argues that a consequence of a culture of therapeutic self-creation would be its inability to distinguish right from wrong – which, by definition, a society based on relative truth could not – would inexorably lead to a situation where murder could not be condemned. Instead it would have to be – in Rorty’s world – treated lightly and without judgement.

Casey uses murder as his case in point. He recognises that murder is a very real aspect of metaphysical societies, and he makes reference to the Holocaust as an example of mass extermination in the name of “meaning”, albeit a twisted one. But he suggests that, rather than reducing the likelihood of murder by removing the need for meaning, a post-metaphysical society would most likely embrace other forms of extermination such as euthanasia and abortion when the moral dimension of such practices is removed.

He argues that in such a world, even the Holocaust could not be dismissed as a model of absolute evil and, therefore, another occurrence could never be ruled out. Casey argues that a life lived without meaning, rather than elevating humankind, would fatally diminish it by stripping us of everything we are; would “reduce the human person to a one-dimensional being of no inherent significance”. It is for this reason that he refuses to accept the solutions of Nietzsche, Freud and Rorty.

Meaninglessness is available at St Paul's bookshop, Castlereagh St, Sydney, or through Freedom publishing, tel (03) 9326 5757 or fax (03) 9328 2877. You can order it online at www.meaninglessness.org $33 (+ postage)